Who Do You Show Your Stories To?

I'm still working at the story-a-week thing, and keeping up with it so far. One thing I'm wondering is who I should show them to to get feedback. Some of these I want to put in the novel/collection I'm doing, but I dunno which work (writer's curse, eh? You never know what's good, really). What do you do?

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That's a difficult one. You need to find people you trust not to steal your ideas and yet ones you are not so close to that just say your work is great regardless of what it's really like. They also need to be reasonably good at English - to check for errors! I have a few friends who I trust but different ones for different genres! I'm loathed to pay these critique services you find on line. There are always people who'll read free fiction! Or join a writing group, writers are pretty critical so you might need a thick skin! Surely there are some on this site who would be willing to help you!

Well, it has mixed success for me, but I tend to throw them up on my blog or Wattpad. Not many folks I have personal connections with who'll give an honest appraisal, unfortunately. Depending on where you're intending to publish, however, that may not be an option (as a lot of markets want first-run, and count web presence against that).

If you're concerned about idea theft or leaks, you could always ask for beta readers on the social sites you're part of, and pull the Stephanie Myer move: edit each copy with a few altered details, in case something goes awry, you know where it came from. That may be a little too paranoid for some tastes, though. If you're less stressed about the spectre of plagiarism you can skip that step and just aim for the beta readers; there's plenty of groups, online and off, for just about any genre. College creative writing workshops might also be a good place to haunt - or, heck, even ask their teaching staff or professors if they'd be willing to take a look and give some advice.

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